Khan, S. R., Kelly, P., & Brown, S. (2025). The status of women and the cultural politics of Pakistan Studies in postcolonial Pakistan. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 1–13.
https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2025.2515021
ABSTRACT
This paper investigates how the rights, roles and status of women are presented in Pakistan Studies textbooks (PSTs) for grades 9 and 10, published by Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB). Using a critical discourse analysis to identify and critique power relations embedded in educational discourses, we understand Pakistan Studies textbooks as politically contested and socially shaped and constituted. Drawing on postcolonial theories, postcolonial feminism and Foucault’s work on power relations, we introduce Pakistan as a postcolonial nation-state and describe its history and context in order to problematise the ‘cultural politics’ that produce these textbooks. We argue that patriarchal understandings of gender-relations and stereotypes of women as ‘weak’, ‘vulnerable’ and in need of ‘male protection and supervision’ are normalised in Pakistan Studies textbooks. The paper illustrates how the cultural politics of Pakistan is dominated by an ideology-based national identity that plays a key role in shaping the content of education materials including the curriculum and textbooks.
KEYWORDS:
Pakistan, women’s rights, education, discourse, cultural politics
Foucault News 